1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lenticular sheet enabling stereoscopic vision of an image and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a recording medium enabling stereoscopic vision of an image, a lenticular sheet has been conventionally known. An ordinary lenticular sheet has: a lenticular lens having a plurality of convex lenses in a semi-columnar shape that are arranged two-dimensionally; and an image recording layer which is provided on a flat surface, of the lenticular lens, opposite the convex lenses and on which a plurality of pixels are formed. On the image recording layer, left-eye pixels and right-eye pixels are adjacently formed. When a person sees the lenticular sheet from the convex lens side of the lenticular lens, the left eye visually perceives the left-eye pixels and the right eye visually perceives the right-eye pixels owing to the convex lenses, so that stereoscopic vision of an image is made possible due to disparity between images seen by the left eye and the right eye respectively (binocular parallax).
There are various methods of image recording on the image recording layer of the above-described lenticular sheet, and as one of them, a recording method by an ink-jet recording apparatus is known. In this case, the image recording layer of the lenticular sheet is made of a material high in ink absorbency (ink absorbing layer).
When an image is recorded on the image recording layer made of the ink absorbing layer by the ink-jet recording apparatus, if a landing position of droplets deviates from a proper position, ink sometimes permeates not only in a region where a desired pixel is disposed but also in a region where an adjacent pixel is disposed. Especially when the above problem occurs between the left-eye pixel and the right-eye pixel in the lenticular sheet, it might not be possible to produce binocular parallax for realizing a stereoscopic image.
Regarding this, in a lenticular sheet of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H09-15766, in order to prevent ink from running to/from adjacent pixels, sheet ribs or water repellent regions not allowing the permeation of the ink are provided on the ink absorbing layer for respective pixels, being arranged at a predetermined pitch in a direction (width direction) perpendicular to a longitudinal direction of semi-columnar convex lens parts (for example, FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H09-15766).
In the above-described lenticular sheet, the sheet ribs or the water repellent regions preventing the ink from running to/from the pixels are exposed on a surface of the lenticular sheet. At the time of image recording, when droplets of the ink jetted from an ink-jet recording apparatus to the ink absorbing layer partly adhere to the aforesaid sheet ribs or water repellent regions, the ink is likely to remain without being absorbed. Accordingly, after the image recording, the ink remaining on exposed surfaces of the sheet ribs or the water repellent regions might contaminate the vicinity (hands of a user, the inside of the recording apparatus, and so on).